Monday, July 21, 2008

It feels as long as an iPhone NDA since MoneyWell 1.3 shipped but it's actually only been three months. I guess the feature set for the next release has been in my head for over a year and that's why I"m confused. No matter, I am thrilled to announce the first MoneyWell 1.4 beta build has been released. This is an incredibly important milestone because it implements something that I've wanted since version 1.0: Direct OFX downloading of transactions.

Being able to click a button and have my transactions list updated is the last feature that I've missed from my days as a Quicken user and now I have it—and, as of today, so do all our beta testers! In addition to direct downloads, MoneyWell also will query your bank for all your accounts and automatically create and populate them with transactions when you add a new document. It even automatically calculates the correct starting balance transaction for you. Even though it's the first beta build, it's working smoothly with my accounts. I'm hoping that the people beta testing will have similar good results.

MoneyWell 1.4 also has some dramatic interface changes in the accounts and buckets lists. They are more compact and have a much higher contrast between buckets that have money to spend, are empty, and have been overspent. Several more features are already active and even more are planned for upcoming builds.

This is an open beta right now because I desperately need confirmation that MoneyWell can talk to lots of banks and not just mine.

In addition to getting a beta published, I also had the privilege of being invited back for another Mac Software Business podcast, this time about the tricky matter of pricing software. As usual, Steve Scott, better known as Scotty, leads us and does a wonderful job. Joining in the discussion were Gus Mueller and Alex Lindsay. I learned a few things so I hope others will as well. Head over to Scotty's place and have a listen.

All in all, it's been a pretty good week. I could not have done all this so quickly if it wasn't for Judy's coming on board. Because of her help, the beta builds will appear more quickly as well as the final release. To save me from having to answer the question of when 1.4 will ship, I'll throw out a guess that it will happen in late August. No guarantees of course.

And to answer that other question: Yes, I love working with my wife and we could never spend too much time together. It's been wonderful.